Local 'tools' get help from reality TV

"Toolette" Courtney Barcellos, who spent the first half of her life in Orange County, is chained in a doghouse on "Tool Academy" while her girlfriend, Cheron Rice, tries to figure out how to free her.

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Courtney Barcellos of San Pedro was born in Newport Beach and lived as a child in Costa Mesa. She became the first-ever gay contestant on "Tool Academy" after her girlfriend Cheron Rice tricked her into appearing on the show in hopes that Courtney would learn to be a better partner.

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Shawn Goble, 29, of Huntington Beach is an unemployed surfer dude ever since being laid off from his job. His girlfriend, Emily Reno, grew tired of his lack of motivation about life, work and their relationship, and tricked him into appearing on "Tool Academy 3" in hopes that he'll learn to be a better boyfriend.

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The cast of "Tool Academy 3" includes two tools with O.C. ties: Courtney Barcellos, second row, second from right, and Shawn Goble, right rear row.

"Toolette" Courtney Barcellos, who spent the first half of her life in Orange County, is chained in a doghouse on "Tool Academy" while her girlfriend, Cheron Rice, tries to figure out how to free her.

'Tool Academy 3'

When: Premieres at 9 p.m. Sunday

Where: VH1

The 10 men and women all think they are in Cancun to audition for the job of Party Ambassador to Mexico, a post they're told will involve lots of travel, wild 'n' crazy partying, booze and hot chicks and dudes, work – we should probably put that in quotes, yes? – for which they'll be paid $100,000.

And, of course, they fall for it.

Because they want to believe it's true? Probably. But it's also in the nature of the "tool" to see him or herself as the center of the universe, so why wouldn't someone want to pay them 100 grand just to be their wonderful selves?

And so "Tool Academy 3" opens with a few fresh twists in the tool shed – including the first married tool, the first women "toolettes," one of whom is the first gay tool – as the season premieres at 9 p.m. Sunday.

One thing hasn't changed, though: two Orange County tools are in the cast of 10 bad boyfriends and girlfriends.

And so as always, we arranged quick interviews with our local tools, Shawn Goble, a 29-year-old from Huntington Beach, and Courtney Barcellos, a 25-year-old from San Pedro who was born in Newport Beach and later lived in Costa Mesa.

LADY LOVIN' TOOL

One of the first times we meet Courtney Barcellos, or Lady Lovin' Tool, as the show producers nicknamed her, she's bragging about her sexual conquests and cheating on her girlfriend.

"Every girl wants to be with me," Barcellos says as her girlfriend, Cheron Rice, looks on miserably at a TV monitor showing the scene. "And all the men are crying because I take all their girlfriends – I like the straight girls."

Not the proudest moment of her life, Barcellos says, and not anything that she expected when she headed for Cancun last year.

"I went down there thinking I was going to have a great time, drink my life away and just party –do what I do best," she says sounding much more reserved than she does on the show.

"As soon as that ('Tool Academy') sign popped up" – the gotcha moment that kicks off each series – "my first reaction was that 'Tool Academy' was only for me," Barcellos says. "I was trying to justify how I could not possibly be on this show.'

"I had not flown to Mexico to be told I was a tool."

So much did she not want to be placed into that tool box that Barcellos initially refused to sign the papers to appear on the show.

"I punched a tree and I had to be talked down," she says. "And they explained to me that Cheron wouldn't have signed me up on the show if she didn't care about me or love me.

"So there was more than thinking I could still win the money," Barcellos says of motivation for sticking around – the winning tool does get $100,000. "(I thought) OK, I was brought on here for a reason, and if I still love this person, and I do, I should give it a try."

Flying home from Mexico to enter the academy – the Los Angeles area mansion where the 10 tools and their hapless partners live during taping – Barcellos says mulled over the tool-ish tendencies that motivated Rice to sign her up for the show.

Yes, she had cheated on her many times, and yes, since moving from Pismo Beach last year to San Pedro the couple had not been communicating well with each other, she says. But did that make her a tool?

"I love the guys (her fellow tools), but their behavior is more what I would classify as one," Barcellos says.

As for the arrival of the show on TV, Barcellos says she feels a little anxiety about how her portrayal will reflect on her, as well as the gay community.

"I was one of only two females, but I was also representing a whole community of gay people, who already get a bad name sometimes," she says. "And I'm on here not getting any better of a name."

We can't reveal how she fared on the show, though her competitive nature – which motivates her to win every competition she enters – does come through in the first episode.

But regardless of how long she lasts, Barcellos says she left the academy having learned, through sessions with show counselor Trina Dolenz and challenges that required her to work together with Rice, how to be a better partner.

"It was a good experience because I believe I grew," she says, adding that she and Rice are still together. "I'm actually in counseling still.

"Definitely once in a lifetime and something I can tell my grandkids about."

SURFIN' TOOL

We meet Shawn Goble, a 29-year-old unemployed surfer from Huntington Beach, in Mexico where he's proudly declaring that he's such a "bad ass" that he got two same two words tattooed on his butt.

And then drops his drawers to prove it.

Which, we suppose, isn't that bad for a prospective Party Ambassador, but as far as boyfriend behavior, well, not so good.

"It was kind of shell shock," Goble says of the moment he realized girlfriend Emily Reno had actually signed him up for "Tool Academy." "The heart kind of dropped: 'Whoa, wait a sec!'

"That whole day I was in shock that I wasn't going to be in Cancun for the rest of the month, I was going back to this place and we were going to battle it out with our girlfriends."

Still, like all the tools on the show, he stuck with it, partly for a chance at the money – they may be tools, but they can count to $!00,000 – and partly because after spending a few years in a relationship with Reno he thought it was worth the work to try to keep her.

"If she feels like I need some counseling, I'm going to do it," Goble says.

Contemplating why Reno might have thought that, Goble says he concluded that it was his lifestyle and attitude that bothered her. After being laid off from two different jobs as a construction project manager he'd decided to collect unemployment and live off his savings instead of looking for new work.

"I think just my attitude to life," he says of what bothered Reno, a 21-year-old student from Rancho Cucamonga. "I'm not on the road to progression, I'm more in the kickback mode. She sees me going out with friends, partying.

"I'm 29, I should be doing different things. Instead I'm always worried about surfing, not about my next job."

Compared to some of the bad behavior exhibited in the first episode of the series – constant infidelities, say – Goble and Reno might have had fewer issues to work through. "The wandering eye thing, we're both pretty good to each other," he says.

But he did realize that he sometimes showed a lack of respect for Reno, calling her names or ditching her to do things with his friends, and through counseling on the show he says he learned to change that.

"The name calling and stuff, I put an end to that," Goble says. "I do feel the show did help. A lot of stuff came out in the open. We were able to talk about how I needed to get my act together."

He's thinking about going back to school, or maybe looking for another job in construction. And so far, he and Reno are still together, Goble says.

And come Sunday night he'll be home with Reno for the premiere, not out partying with his pals.

"I'm going to be making Emily dinner and we're going have bottle of wine and sit down and watch the show," Goble says. "At first we thought we'd get some people together, but then we thought, 'You know, we don't need a lot of people laughing at us,' and it's Valentine's Day and we're going to be together anyway."

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